OROHARDING. ^ 261 



business. A young man with health, strength and vigor may feel that 

 his bone and muscle are a match for all these obstacles. I thought 

 sconce, but it did not take me long to find out my mistake, and see 

 that there was no profit in tr3'ing to farm it in the old way on such 

 land. 



I confess I can see but one way that such farms can be made a 

 source of profit and comfort to the owners, and that is by making 

 fruit farms of them in connection with sheep raising, for I consider 

 sheep the best help we can have in cheaply keeping an orchard in 

 the best condition. We can come nearer competing with the West 

 in fruit raising than in an}' thing else. We can have good thrifty 

 trees and luscious fruit where tlie rocks lie undisturbed in the soil, 

 and the full blood merinos liu around enriching the soil and waiting 

 to give us their valuable fleeces. If it is desired to free the soil of 

 rocks, it will require only a small area, coraparativel}', for one acre 

 of orchard well taken care of will be of more profit than man}- whole 

 farms of one hundred acres now are. I know of no other crop from 

 which so much can be realized on the same amount of land as fruit. 

 A good orchard is verj' desirable on any farm, but on such as I have 

 referred to, it is an absolute necessity if they are to be continued as 

 farms. If each one of them had a good, large, thifty orchard on it, 

 the benefit to the communit}' and to the State would be be} ond com- 

 putation. Where a hundred dollars are now brought into the State, 

 thousands and tens of thousands would be realized. Farms that 

 are now worth a few hundred dollars would be worth as many thou- 

 sands. It may be thought that I am too enthusiastic on this point, 

 but (pardon me for referring to my own operations) when I bought 

 the place where I now live it was an old forsaken farm, buildings all 

 gone except a few old timbers which I put into the fx^nce, and the 

 whole turned out to pasture. It is no better orchard land than a 

 thousand of other farms, and I know of some that are much better. 

 I commenced setting trees and sowing nurseries, and have kept on 

 ever since. Good judges of orchards are kind enough to say that I 

 have a valuable orchard ; at any rate the assessors seem to think so, 

 and my farm is not for sale. I think if I could make such a place 

 worth living on, others might do the same. All the money I could 

 raise to pay toward my land when I bought was seventy-five dollars, 

 and I had no other property except a sucking colt, so you see it is 

 possible to get. up an orchard without mouied capital to commence 

 with. Any one who has an acre of land can commence operations, 



